Posted on 12/01/2007 3:10:39 PM PST by yankeedame
By STEPHANIE GASKELL in SOMERSWORTH, N.H.,
and LARRY McSHANE in NEW YORK
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Saturday, December 1st 2007, 3:19 PM
'He's capable of anything,' said Leeland Eisenberg's former neighbor, Kathleen Carlsen. 'I don't want anything to do with that man.'
The trailer where Eisenberg lived for a time with his now estranged wife. She filed for divorce three days before the hostage incident.
The note that Eisenberg's family taped to the door.
The neatly dressed man who took hostages in Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office was known as a hard-drinking madman with a violent temper and a lurid past around the trailer park that he called home.
"He walks around talking to himself," said 18-year-old Robert Gilman, whose grandmother lived alongside the light blue trailer where Leeland Eisenberg once resided with his estranged wife.
"He's always talking about God, like he's having a conversation with Him," said Gilman who referred to Eisenberg as a "psycho."
Eisenberg, 46, taped a phony bomb to his waist before walking into Clinton's office in Rochester, N.H., on Friday.
He kept police at bay for more than five hours while holding a half-dozen campaign volunteers hostage.
He had been on the radar of local law enforcement for two years before the bizarre incident, and his past emerged as a tortured jumble of mental illness, sexual deviance, substance abuse, a failed suicide try, and allegations of molestation by a Roman Catholic priest.
The suspect claimed in a 2002 story in The Lowell Sun that the premature death of his mother, coupled with an abusive father, turned him into a drinker and drug-user. He eventually wound up homeless, living in an abandoned car in a New Hampshire junkyard.
Eisenberg - then going by the name Ralph Woodward Jr. - was serving a 12-to-20 year jail term in 2002 for forcing a woman at knifepoint to perform oral sex on him. The Sun interviewed him after he filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Boston.
Court records in Massachusetts showed he was one of 541 victims who received settlements from the archdiocese in 2003, although the priest he accused had denounced Eisenberg as "a really scary individual."
Eisenberg remained behind bars Saturday at the Stafford County jail. He was being held without bail, awaiting arraignment on kidnapping and other felony charges.
His relatives barricaded themselves inside the family trailer, with his stepson extending a raised middle finger to reporters.
"Please respect our privacy," read a note left outside the trailer. "We will not be available for comment at this time."
Eisenberg's stepson, after sitting with police interviewers for an hour, told an employee at a local hotel that the suspect was on a three-day bender before walking into the Clinton offices, where the hostages included a woman with her infant.
"He told me his stepfather said, 'I need help' the night before," Chelsea Coull, 19, an employee of the Governor's Inn, said yesterday. "He said, 'I don't know what to do with my life.'"
New Hampshire neighbors portrayed Eisenberg, who faces up to 42 years in prison, in a similar light.
"It did not shock me when I heard it was him," said Gilman's grandmother Kathleen Carlsen.
"He drinks every day, morning and night," said Carlsen, 70, who repeatedly referred to Eisenberg as a "nut bar."
She said he introduced himself around the trailer park as "Lee Warren," and was constantly fighting with his wife, Lisa, who had filed for divorce just three days before the hostage taking.
"He's capable of anything," Carlsen said. "I don't want anything to do with that man."
Good eye.
Hillary’s path is just as “long and twisted”.
“”He told me his stepfather said, ‘I need help’ the night before,” Chelsea Coull, 19, an employee of the Governor’s Inn,”........
The local news there (I don’t know about national) kept replaying this interview because they asked her, her name first.
They keep trying to push Cindy Sheehan over the edge. They certainly aren’t concerned about HER mental stability.
I can read Arkansas across the Left of the shirt. But my own office in engaged in some fundraising for that charity right now and I’m not in Arkansas or New Hampshire and neither is the home office of my employer.
So to conclude my point, I’d chalk it up as a coincidence. However, she may have selected the shirt to highlight it on the tv broadcast (for charitable not political reasons) and wasn’t just “caught” wearing this shirt around her house.
I don't know...maybe some immediate family members of the hostages?
Still, I think it's petty not to give Hillary credit for remaining calm. My respect for her doubled as a result of this incident.
Of course, two times zero is still zero.
If it did happen that Leeland should have prior knowledge, I would expect a Jack Ruby scenario, doesn't make it through the weekend.
Anyway, enough with the distraction can we get back to discrediting CNN. That was a nobel cause.
Hillary what takeing so long you had enough time to get your Photo-op out.
Hillary
From: Clinton Calm in Hostage Crisis
"It affected me not only because they were my staff members and volunteers, but as a mother, it was just a horrible sense of bewilderment, confusion, outrage, frustration, anger, everything at the same time," Clinton said.
I just remembered something very important.
Every time there was a national or international “crises” under the Clintons, these “crises” were always scheduled for a Friday U.S. clock time.
The standoff at Clinton’s campaign office took place Friday, 30 November.
It is being replayed again. I can’t believe I missed this.
I just remembered something very important.
Every time there was a national or international “crises” under the Clintons, these “crises” were always scheduled for a Friday U.S. clock time.
The standoff at Clinton’s campaign office took place Friday, 30 November.
It is being replayed again. I can’t believe I missed this.
Sorry for the double post.
Gads.
Shall I try for a triple?
Drag a dollar through a trailer park...
Why did I get that same feeling yesterday? Hmmm.
Presidential manner? For cripe’s sake she was never in danger.
When I saw that headline I wasn’t sure if it was referring to the guy with the fake bombs or Hillary. Could have been either, a sad reality for the Dem front runner.
This guy’s considered “sick” by the media, and his rap sheet is not only shorter than the clinton’s but closely parallels it.
Keep those “sympathy” violins playing! Hillary, keep on thanking Rochester all over the country, milk it for the weekend.
notice her shirt says arkansas, race for the cure....
* the lady’s sweatshirt saying Arkansas.
* happens on a Friday so story all weekend in time for Sunday talk show circuit.
* fake bomb
* she was calm | she was calm | she was calm, therefore commander-like.
* guy forced woman to perform oral sex on him - not in oval office
* neighbors name is CHELSEA.
Occam’s Razor
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